Topic: Planets!

[Darkseid]

One thing I've noticed is that while there are awesome ships being built left and right, planets aren't really getting a lot of attention.  At least not for SFC3 anyways.  I'd love to see some really awesome realistic textures for some planets... like this one for example...



OK so maybe they wouldn't be as brilliant in gameplay but it would be nice to shoot for lol.

[Smiley]

I definitely second that motion. I would make some but I don't even know what can be done with the SFC3 game engine in terms of alpha layers for clouds, and that wonderful aura glow that is going on in the example pic.
Plus mapping a spherical with a continuous texture gives me headaches - I've tried all kinds of different techniques and they always end up looking bad in at least one place.

[Smiley]

you guys really havent vbeen looking at the Chabot thread have you, the earth with spacedock, moon, dry dock and repair scaffold with nebula in is the first of myany planets im working on they will be released dueing the next month or so but right now im just bring all my stuff into my house so have to unpack and such before releasing stuff

*goes and look at Chabot thread again*

Ok, so there's a couple of screenies (which at first I assumed were renders for some reason) with an M class planet in the background that looks like Earth. My comments were more geared towards having an atmosphere mapped to a sphere around the outside of a planet, using an alpha mask for transparency - I don't actually know if you can do this or if you did do this with your planets.
Do you have a higher resolution texture for that Earth-like planet though? The clouds look pretty jaggy! :S

[Dizzy]

Anyone doing planets please PM me cuz the dynaverse needs you!!!

Please see this thread: http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163273306.msg1122167338.html#msg1122167338

EDIT: as you can see in the pics below, current hardpoints on planet meshes increase the distance of planet mounted weapons to their targets while attacking ships are able to get closer shots. This creates an advantage for ships attacking the planet. If the planets weapon hardpoints were moved, however... they would have the same range to target the ships have to the planet creating an equal playing field and enabling point defense weapons to work. Currently, drones simply impact the planet and the planet's Ph3's are simply too far away from the drones to fire defensively. So this gives a major advantage to droner races...

Here's some pics:

[Smiley]

Dizzy why didn't anyone mention this to a modeler before? It's just a sphere! Not exactly hard to do!

What you do need to explain to us though is how the game knows to apply a texture to the sphere automatically (your post indicates that one mesh is used but with different textures) - is this achieved using a specifically named material for example?

Also need confirmation over whether the hardpoints MUST be inside or outside of the body of the mesh.

PS sorry for hijacking this thread!

[Dizzy]

The hardpoints need be just outside the mesh. Drones can never be put on a planet because they have no arc you can assign. They are 360` weapons. Therefore when fired, they will attempt to target an enemy ship on the other side of the planet and hit the planet as they attempt to go thru it. Plasma tries the same thing... but unlike drones, they dont explode when the hit the planet but make annoying collision noises as they pass thru it.

Having hardpoints and arcs both assigned on the mesh as in the pic above ensures this doesnt happen with plasma and all the other direct fire weapons work properly.

Question, do you have a copy of OP? This would greatly aid me in explaining the planets and how they all need to be fixed. (Yes they are currently broken and only half work in game).

Further note, Firesoul considered adding fixed planets to his OPPlus list... but there were too many hurdles and no modelers that wanted to tackle the project. So it's a pretty big deal if this issue is resolved.

[Darkseid]

you guys really havent vbeen looking at the Chabot thread have you, the earth with spacedock, moon, dry dock and repair scaffold with nebula in is the first of myany planets im working on they will be released dueing the next month or so but right now im just bring all my stuff into my house so have to unpack and such before releasing stuff

We were looking at the thread but I think our eyes were focused on the Chabot herself lol.

[Hollis J Wood]

well I for one did a bunch of planets long time ago with real image textures on them for the game but no one has them anymore I see

[E_Look]

Dude!  I'm looking for them!

I probably downloaded them ages ago and are on some CDROM.  Looking for it will not be fun.

[Hollis J Wood]

i will see if I have them on my hd

[ModelsPlease]

Send me an OP planet model.....I'll give it a go at hardpointing it.

[Dizzy]

Done. Sent you the most famous planet of them all. G/L!

[ModelsPlease]

Ok it's done. Run it through ShipEdit 3.99 and change the Arcs to match your diagram. Hardpoints are in place. Let us know if it works.

-MP

[Don Karnage]

for what game is the weapons spec for?, i never see that for sfc2 or op?, since there no ship edit for sfc3 i was wondering for what game it was???

Anyone doing planets please PM me cuz the dynaverse needs you!!!

Please see this thread: http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163273306.msg1122167338.html#msg1122167338

EDIT: as you can see in the pics below, current hardpoints on planet meshes increase the distance of planet mounted weapons to their targets while attacking ships are able to get closer shots. This creates an advantage for ships attacking the planet. If the planets weapon hardpoints were moved, however... they would have the same range to target the ships have to the planet creating an equal playing field and enabling point defense weapons to work. Currently, drones simply impact the planet and the planet's Ph3's are simply too far away from the drones to fire defensively. So this gives a major advantage to droner races...

Here's some pics:

[ModelsPlease]

for what game is the weapons spec for?, i never see that for sfc2 or op?, since there no ship edit for sfc3 i was wondering for what game it was???

Anyone doing planets please PM me cuz the dynaverse needs you!!!

Please see this thread: http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163273306.msg1122167338.html#msg1122167338

EDIT: as you can see in the pics below, current hardpoints on planet meshes increase the distance of planet mounted weapons to their targets while attacking ships are able to get closer shots. This creates an advantage for ships attacking the planet. If the planets weapon hardpoints were moved, however... they would have the same range to target the ships have to the planet creating an equal playing field and enabling point defense weapons to work. Currently, drones simply impact the planet and the planet's Ph3's are simply too far away from the drones to fire defensively. So this gives a major advantage to droner races...

Here's some pics:

It's for SFC2 Don.

[Smiley]

my earth textures are 1024x1024 the clouds arnt jaggedy on the texture itself its just how SFC3 renders certain models at certain distances. as for a transparent atmosphere Interstellar and i have spoke about it but might cause complications for one it might make the whole planet dissapear because of the alpha channel. or even allow one side of the planet to be cloak as if your looking through to the other side. personaly i think if you really want an ambiant atmosphere it might simply be easier to either use the taldren model tools to add a glow over the entire model or try the transparent layer while making sure you have the clouds themselves set in the lightmap, this should give the appeance of storms.

I was looking at Interstellar Machine's post about the transparent damage textures, now I've read this I am left wondering why not have two spheres; one as the planets; the outet one as the atmosphere. Assign a tga texture of clouds to the outer sphere but give it an alpha map so that the non-clouded areas are transparent, that way you can see through to the planet surface below...

[Lieutenant_Q]

because tga is for SFC3, and we're talking SFC2 here...

[ModelsPlease]

because tga is for SFC3, and we're talking SFC2 here...

I think we are trying to address all of the SFC games.

[Dizzy]

WOW! I ran that planet thru against a FBB and for the 1st time the planet was able to fire Ph3's against incoming drones!!!!!!!! This is huge.

Ok, here's how I can make it all worth while. I can change the shiplist planets geometry to match the planets I add to my installer for SGO VI dynaverse server. Therefore whenever someone takes a mission, the planet will have the proper arcs and be able to defend itself vs drones. By using a different directory and copying all the planets to new folders I avoid having to mess with stock folders where some may have already altered their planets to suit their own needs.

We axe 2 planets in the list because their rings are incorporated into the collision edge of the mesh... increases the size of the planet too much and destroys objects mission scripts put next to them upon mission start, I'll have to see which ones, but that leaves 24 more. Do you want to get them all done before Friday? Or do you want to shelve this and wait till the next server comes around?

I'd love to nip this in the butt now and implement this sweeping new change. But if changing the hardpoints was difficult, then I know Im asking too much.

BTW... looked as if there was one phaser hardpoint that was a little higher than equator level... i dont know which one tho.

Also, and this is on my end only, my diagram Hvy Weapon Hardpoints are too narrow I think. I'll setup shipedit arcs with heavy weapons that match the arcs of the phasers widening their fire for better coverage.

TY MP for doing this. If you arnt able to get them done, at least we know they can be fixed. 

[E_Look]

In retrospect, all SFC versions should have given their planets ph3's and ph4's or just ph4's.  It would have made gameplay more interesting, as starbase planets are supposed to be able to scare off a small bunch of ships by their big guns.